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Tories surge ahead of Liberals, poll finds

Buoyed by rising support in Ontario, Tories win the backing of more Canadians despite recent controversies.

By Bruce Campion-SmithOttawa Bureau chief

Fri., Feb. 25, 2011

Note: This article has been edited from a previously published version.

OTTAWA—Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are knocking on the door of an elusive majority, helped in part by the growing support of Ontario voters, an exclusive Star poll of more than 6,000 Canadians reveals.

The survey — one of the largest samplings of public opinion in advance of a possible spring election — shows the Conservatives have built a daunting 13-point lead over the Liberals nationwide.

The Conservatives are at 39 per cent, the Liberals are at 26 per cent, the NDP is at 18 per cent and the Green Party is at 6 per cent, according to the latest polling by Angus Reid Public Opinion.

While those numbers are not far off the results of the last election, the large sample size allows a more detailed analysis of how the parties are faring province-by-province. And those numbers show some “important shifts” that would influence an election outcome, said Jaideep Mukerji, vice-president of public affairs for the polling firm.

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“The regional breakdown seems to favour the Tories, meaning that a Conservative majority is within reach but is by no means a certainty,” he said.

“The ballot question implicitly is going to be do you want a Tory majority?” he said.

Importantly for the Conservatives, the numbers reveal they have so far survived the controversy surrounding Bev Oda’s misstatements to MPs as well as the party’s determination to push ahead with corporate tax cuts — an issue Liberals intend to take on the campaign trail — with little damage.

It’s a dramatic showing for the Tories and one that will likely influence the thinking of party strategists as they pull together a federal budget expected in late March.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his ministers have repeatedly said they won’t spark what they call an “opportunistic” election. But high in the polls and looking at a possible majority, the question is how hard they will work to avert one.

Do they decide to meet some or all of the NDP’s budget demands to assure that party’s backing to avoid defeat in the minority Parliament and a spring election?

Or do the Conservatives, buoyed by the gains in public support, decide to freeze out the NDP and take their chances at the polls if they are defeated in the budget vote.

“I have a hard time thinking the Tories would want an election if there wasn’t a reasonable chance they could get a majority. I don’t think they are just going to roll the dice,” Mukerji said in an interview Friday.

“If the Conservatives are a little skittish about an election, I think they’d probably be able to find a willing partner in the NDP to prop them up.”

For the Conservatives it’s all good news in Ontario — a key battleground in the next election — where they enjoy a 13-point lead over the Liberals. That’s up five points from November.

The Conservatives’ road to a majority runs right through Ontario. The party is fighting hard to build on past gains in the 905 region, break into the Liberal bastion of Toronto and win seats in the corridor stretching to Windsor.

In Quebec, the Bloc Québécois holds a significant lead with 39 per cent, compared with 20 per cent for the Conservatives, 21 per cent for the Liberals and 14 per cent for the NDP.

Mukerji cautioned not to put too much stock in claims the Conservatives are badly wounded in Quebec, suggesting they are likely to retain the 11 seats they hold there now.

In Newfoundland, the Conservatives have bounced back from the 2008 election, when they faced the ire of then-premier Danny Williams who actively campaigned against the Tories. The party now stands at 42 per cent in the polls, up 28 per cent from the 2008 vote. That compares with the Liberals, which are down 11 points to 36 per cent, and the NDP, which is down 13 points to 21 per cent.

“They have completely rehabilitated their image,” Mukerji said, adding that the current support could translate into three or four seats for the Conservatives in a province where they hold none now.

“That’s not a lot but when you’re looking at the math of trying to pick up 10 or 11 seats, those little things matter,” he said, explaining the strategy to get to a majority.

The polling is not all bad for the Liberals. The party is up three points in B.C., 10 points in Alberta and 11 points in Nova Scotia — largely at the expense of the New Democrats.

Indeed, the news is not so encouraging for the NDP, Mukerji said. While the party is at 18 per cent nationally — about where it finished in the 2008 election — poll results show it down in Alberta, Manitoba and across the Maritimes.

“I think they probably have the most to lose,” Mukerji said.

Mukerji said the Conservatives are likely to campaign on a theme of stability versus risk.

They’ll continue their public campaign to undermine Canadians’ views of Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff while raising the possibility of a Liberal-NDP coalition government backed by the Bloc after the next vote, he said.

“It’s a powerful message. There are a lot of people who react very negatively to the idea of a coalition. Not so much between the Liberals and NDP but with the Bloc — that really gets people’s backs up,” Mukerji said.

Implicit in the Conservatives’ message as the “stable” option will be a choice for voters, “if you really want stability, you should give us a majority,” Mukerji said.

Yet there’s a caution for the Conservatives in the numbers too — after five years of governing and a string of Liberal leaders, Harper has yet to enjoy consistently strong numbers in majority territory.

“A Tory majority, even five years into a Tory minority, is still for some people a pretty provocative proposition. It gets them concerned,” he said.

The online survey involved 6,442 Canadian adults who are Angus Reid panellists. The poll was done between Feb. 11 and Feb. 18 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 per cent, 19 times out of 20. The margin of error for provincial breakdowns is greater, ranging from 3.16 per cent for Ontario to 5.66 per cent for Nova Scotia.

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